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HOPKINS, MN While U.S. coronavirus cases and deaths have been trending downward over the past week, hospitals across the country still report straining to meet the demands of the ongoing pandemic.
At the national level, during the week ending Jan. 25, deaths were running at an average of just under 3,100 a day down from a peak of more than 3,350 in the weeks prior, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. New cases were averaging about 170,000 a day after hitting almost 250,000 earlier this month.
Meanwhile, state health officials in Minnesota reported to the federal government that 72 percent of all inpatient beds in hospitals across the state were still occupied as of Jan. 23. Around 6 percent of beds statewide were filled by COVID-19 patients, they reported.
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Mel and Sue Awes spent the last weeks of their lives in a shared double room in Fairview Southdale Hospital s ICU sedated and on ventilators fighting COVID-19 complications.
The Edina couple began dating when they were students at the University of Minnesota. In six decades of marriage, they had done everything together: moved around the country, raised five children, built careers in sales, amassed a passel of friends.
Breaking with protocol, the hospital staff drew back the divider curtain and placed the couple s beds feet-to-feet, a few yards apart.
In the face of an inhumane disease, it was a humanizing gesture, one that brought their loved ones great comfort. Mom and Dad were Frick and Frack, they were always together, their son Ben Awes of St. Paul explained.